Drinking Coffee Due To Social Awkwardness

I’m attempting to send off a short story every month and a fairly easy way to do this is submitting to the Writers’ Forum Flash Fiction competition. This months entry is set in a hair salon/barbers and must be ‘show not tell’ That phrase grates at me but i will nevertheless give it a go. I went to the hairdressers this morning and had an interesting internal monologue. Here’s a little peak into my mind.

A bitter taste hit sophie’s tongue. coffee? didn’t she ask for tea? Another sip, definitely coffee. Two women stood at the desk, talking in the bored productive manner that comes along with service work. The girl who brought Sophie’s drink sits to her right behind a trolley full of hair products. The girl doesn’t make eye contact, she pretends it takes all her effort to stock the shelves. Is she shy or just bored of being relegated as the tea girl?

It’s too late to ask for tea now. She tries another sip, maybe she could like coffee if she tried hard enough, besides it’s meant to be good for asthma and she has been suffering a lot recently. But then again, aren’t there studies which show if you start drinking coffee you have to stay drinking the same amount each day just to keep normal energy levels? what if this little bit of coffee has changed the way her body works?